Lord Craig of Radley: My Lords, the implication of what the Minister says is that there is inadequate helicopter effort elsewhere, other than in Afghanistan. He is suggesting that there is a need for considerably more helicopter airframes and hours. Where is the lack of helicopters impinging on the services at present?

Lord Foulkes of Cumnock: My Lords, perhaps I may, as a grandfather, give the House and the noble Baroness some advice. Is the House aware that booster seats have been available at a well known store in Ayr and throughout the United Kingdom for just under £5? Surely that is a small price to pay for the safety of children?

Lord Ezra: My Lords, I thank the Minister for his comprehensive and generally encouraging response. While it is satisfactory to note that we shall have extra pipeline capacity this winter, I am sure the noble Lord will agree that the essential issue is the amount of gas that will actually flow through those pipelines, bearing in mind our experience last winter and also bearing in mind that we shall have to import about 30 per cent of our requirements this winter, according to estimates published by Ofgem. Does he further agree that, pending long-term measures to reduce our growing dependence on imported gas from increasingly uncertain sources, it is essential in the short term to increase our storage capacity which, even after the repair of the Rough facility, is still way below continental levels? Will he agree that the recent experience with the over-supply of gas during tests on the new Langeled pipeline emphasises the need for the UK urgently to increase its gas storage capacity?

Lord O'Neill of Clackmannan: My Lords, does my noble friend agree that the short-term position is very encouraging, given last year's difficulties, but that, in the medium term, we will become increasingly dependent on Russia? At present, Gazprom has about 95 per cent of the gas export capability in Russia and we in Europe are currently dependent on Russia for 25 per cent of our supplies. Given the stickiness and lack of investment on the scale that our increasing demands will require—that is, in the European Union—we need to be keeping a close watch on what is happening in Russia.

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: urrently, we screen for TB those arriving from countries with a high rate of TB who want to remain for longer than six months. We also screen abroad applicants for entry clearance in six countries that are high-risk for TB. We will shortly be making an announcement on the next phase of this overseas screening programme, which will extend the scheme to other high-risk countries.

Lord Dholakia: My Lords, I thank the Minister for that reassuring answer. I ask her to note that the incidence of TB is not restricted simply to immigrants either from abroad or in this country. Will she explain whether any facilities are now available for people from other countries to have information in their own language so that they know where to go for treatment as and when they suffer such a crisis?

Lord Triesman: My Lords, perhaps I may take the questions in reverse order. Of course we need to take every step to ensure that nuclear materials do not get to other states or, indeed, to none-state actors—terrorist groups and others who might very well exploit them. I do not believe that Her Majesty's Government have any intention of trying to persuade people to inflict further starvation on the people of North Korea. They are as much victims of this as anyone. We must use all our endeavours to ensure that we make progress not only on the nuclear issue, and those of missile firing and testing, but also on human rights. My right honourable friend Ian McCartney has been telling the North Korean Government, day by day, week by week, that these attacks on their own citizens are intolerable.

3.16 pm

Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, this amendment removes from the Bill the provision which would place basic command units on a statutory footing. In explaining why we are withdrawing this provision, it is perhaps worth reminding the House why we included it in the first instance. There is widespread agreement that agencies involved in tackling crime and disorder can work best together if their boundaries are aligned. This is particularly true in the case of basic command units and local authorities, which are the two key pillars of crime and disorder reduction partnerships and strategies. Most, if not all, chief constables already recognise this, but it is open to any new chief constable to alter BCU boundaries.
	Paragraphs 1 and 2 of Schedule 2, therefore, simply sought to enshrine in statute the requirement for BCU and local authority boundaries to be aligned and coterminous, and to place a duty on chief constables to consult key partners before altering BCU boundaries. It is undoubtedly the case that other motives have been read into this provision. In Committee, the noble Baroness, Lady Harris of Richmond, talked of preparing BCUs for "future developments", including direct funding from central government. The noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, expressed similar concerns, as has the Association of Chief Police Officers and the APA, as they are entitled to do.
	I repeat that, in bringing forward this provision, we are concerned solely with ensuring that BCUs are coterminous with local authority boundaries to aid partnership working on community safety issues. Happily, it is the case that the police service shares that objective. A number of chief constables have moved during the past year or so to review their BCU boundaries. I am now aware of only six BCUs out of some 225 which are not coterminous with local authorities, and in four of these cases, the discrepancy is very minor.
	As the situation on the ground now largely reflects the outcome we were seeking, the Government are ready to withdraw this provision from the Bill. My ministerial colleague, the Minister for Policing, Security and Community Safety, has, however, written to the Association of Chief Police Officers to reinforce our expectation that the principle of coterminosity will be observed, save where there are compelling reasons for departing from this general rule.
	We have a happy situation here where a policy objective is shared; there is commitment to it; and, in large measure, it is in place without the more rigorous hand of statute imposing its print on the way in which policing operates. That happy outcome enables me to move the amendment. I beg to move.

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: My Lords, I hope that I can continue in the happy frame in which we have started. I assure the House that we listened very carefully to debates in Committee on the provisions of the Bill that relate to membership of police authorities, and to the discussions that we have had in the mean time, before Report. I appreciate the concerns that have been so elegantly articulated about the need to retain the core principles governing the composition of the police authorities in primary legislation. The government amendments in this group will restore much of the detail of these provisions on to the face of the Police Act 1996.
	The Bill currently leaves the procedure for appointing the members of the police authority entirely to regulations and, in particular, does not specify who is responsible for appointing the councillor and independent members. Having heard the arguments in this House and those put to us by the Association of Police Authorities, in these amendments we seek to strike a better balance between primary and secondary legislation. It became clear in our debates that there was no difference between us on this; it was simply a matter of how we were going to express our comity in relation to this area.
	The amendments put into primary legislation a provision to stipulate that councillor members should be appointed by the councils from which they are drawn and that independent members should be appointed by the existing membership of the police authority from among the shortlist of candidates recommended as suitable for appointment by a selection panel.
	I also understand the concerns that several noble Lords have raised about the appointment of the chair and vice-chairs to the police authority. Accordingly, the amendments will now stipulate in the Police Act who should make these appointments. The chair and vice-chair would, as now, be appointed by the authority from among its members. Amendment No. 14, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, is in similar vein. Other provisions relating to these appointments, including eligibility for appointment and the duration of such appointments, remuneration and allowances, should rightly be left to regulations.
	I have also listened closely to the heartfelt views expressed by many noble Lords on retaining the separate category of magistrate members on police authorities. I feel some confidence that that will give particular pleasure to the noble Baroness opposite. As I said in Committee, I recognise the valuable skills and knowledge that magistrates bring to authorities. We certainly did not want to lose that entirely, so Amendment No. 11 provides that at least one of the independent members of the police authority should be a magistrate. I hope that Members on the Benches opposite will accept that as a sensible compromise.
	Finally, the government amendments restore the existing Section 4 of the Police Act, which provides for police authorities to have a standard membership of 17. I recognise that the Bill could, hypothetically, empower some future Home Secretary to create police authorities with a membership of as few as three. That was never our intention. We will retain, as now, a power to increase the size of individual police authorities by regulations.
	I trust that the amendments I have tabled will give the House the reassurance that many noble Lords have asked for. I am sorry that we have not been able to make all the amendments that noble Lords have sought, but I hope that the major amendments about which people were most anxious have all been satisfied, and this wonderful atmosphere that we are developing in debating this Bill can continue for a while longer. I beg to move.

Baroness Harris of Richmond: My Lords, I, too, support Amendment No. 10, which puts magistrates back in a separate category of member, and Amendments Nos. 14 and 15, which concern electing chairs and vice-chairs—which has been dealt with by the Government's amendment—although, frankly, I prefer the Conservative's amendment which deletes all regulation-making powers.
	I wish to speak briefly to Amendments Nos. 11, 13, 19 and 20 in this large grouping. The Government have conceded some of the provisions that we requested, such as 17 members for most police authorities, but political balance is the key to the way in which police authorities operate. It has kept them free from party political control for many years, not to mention free from control by extremist groups, single issue groups and so forth. This means that the police, and particularly the chief officer, are not controlled in a partisan way, whether political or otherwise, and leaves him or her free to use best professional judgment. An approach that did not guarantee political balance would mean that police authorities were not properly representative of the communities they serve. The measure must be written into primary legislation as an underlying principle of the councillor membership of police authorities or this balanced approach risks being lost.
	Amendment No. 20 addresses the deputy chairs of the NPIA. The Bill proposes that in addition to nominating the chair—which I understand the NPIA somewhat reluctantly accepts—the Mayor of London can also nominate the two vice-chairs of the body. The NPIA should be able to elect its own vice-chairs, as do all other police authorities. If that were not the case, it would be undemocratic. It is necessary to underpin local accountability for policing with the police authority, as distinct from the local authority. The two have different responsibilities and we should not blur them.

Lord Harris of Haringey: My Lords, I hesitate to change the tone of some of the discussion that has taken place, but I will do so in the nicest possible way. First, I apologise to my noble friend for having missed the first few seconds of her remarks in introducing her very welcome group of amendments. They are welcome as regards what they say; my concern is about one or two things that they leave out and where they have gone beyond what makes sense or beyond a consensus that is emerging around those issues. I will speak to Amendments Nos. 13, 19 and 20.
	Amendments Nos. 13 and 19 make it a requirement that the local authority members of police authorities and the GLA members of the Metropolitan Police authorities should be selected so as to deliver a proportion of members broadly in line with the political balance in the areas concerned. That is important because it makes it an obligation on councils in nominating members to police authorities. Currently, local government law requires that an individual local authority making nominations to an external body should do so in line with political balance, but it is not at all clear that there is such a requirement where this is being done jointly by a number of local authorities, particularly where there are authorities with different levels of responsibility in that mix. That is extremely important in the context of the operation of police authorities.
	Clearly, a great deal of effort has been put in over the years to achieve a balanced membership of police authorities, so that up until now elected members have been in a majority of one over independent and magistrate members. That provides a democratic legitimacy to what is being done but with room for a range of other experience and backgrounds to be represented as well. The principle that councillor members should reflect the political balance of the area that the police authority covers is important because it emphasises that democratic link, but it also ensure that the full range of political views in an area is represented.
	I put it to your Lordships that if there were an area where most of the local councils were led by one political party rather than another, a committee of those authorities would automatically send to the police authority representation solely of that political party. There might be a circumstance in which a political party led by one seat in each of the councils, but the nature of bringing them together in a joint committee and inviting them to nominate could, without this amendment, lead to a single party dominating the situation. The removal of the provision for a majority of one—we talk simply about a majority, for reasons that we all understand—could lead to the domination of a police authority by one political party.
	I suppose that, like the political Members of your Lordships' House, if it was our political party in that dominant position we might think that that would be absolutely fine and dandy, but I rather suspect that the reality would be much more complicated. It seems to me that ensuring such a balance is a way of ensuring that decisions about policing are achieved by cross-party consensus in the areas concerned. It has been the reality that police authorities around the country have operated in a consensual fashion on most of the issues with which they have had to contend. That does not mean that there have not been political arguments or arguments about matters affecting policing, but those arguments have tended not to be along party political lines, except on very specific matters. We are in danger of creating a situation where police authorities as a whole would be attacked on political grounds by people from other political parties who had been unfairly excluded from the process or had had reduced representation because there would not be the requirement for political balance.
	If we want, as I am sure all your Lordships do, a fair and impartial service that is seen to be fair and impartial and one that is not influenced by the political concerns of one political party or another, it is important that that principle is written into primary legislation. I would have thought that my amendments would enable that to happen and would ensure that the political membership of police authorities was balanced across the area concerned. Those are my reasons for tabling Amendments Nos. 13 and 19.
	Amendment No. 20 looks at the unique position of the Metropolitan Police Authority. I declare a current interest in that I remain a member of that authority. Indeed, I am grateful to my noble friend for reinforcing the position under which I hold a mandate to sit on that authority by ensuring that that mandate is contained within the Bill and that I am the Home Office nominee to the police authority in London.
	In London, following consultations conducted by the government office over the past year, it has been decided that the chair of the police authority should be appointed by the Mayor of London. A broad consensus has emerged and the formulation contained in the Bill on that matter is probably the best statement that one can have: that the Mayor can chose to appoint himself, or herself, to the police authority, in which case he should chair the authority. That is a sensible arrangement should the Mayor, whoever that might be, want to be seen to be taking the lead role on policing. But if the Mayor chose not to appoint himself to that office, he would choose from among the members of the police authority. The inclusion of that provision is welcome and there has been some discussion about that.
	But nowhere previously has there been any discussion about the Mayor of London appointing the vice-chairs of the police authority—and I am not sure where that suggestion has come from. It does not seem to have emanated from the Mayor's office or from New Scotland Yard; and I can assure noble Lords, given my discussions in the past week, that it has not emanated from the Metropolitan Police Authority. It may be that some over-worked civil servant, desperate to prepare the amendments in time for consideration by your Lordships' House, has simply read across from one bit of legislation to another. After all, these things do not happen in such a slapdash and inconsequential way, but there seems to be some strange read-across regarding this. We want to avoid a situation in which the other members of the police authority feel alienated from the Mayor of London. There may be an acceptance that the Mayor should chair the police authority, or should appoint the chair, but it would seem a step too far to state that the main officers of the police authority should be mayoral appointments, even if they are members of the police authority.
	Perhaps my noble friend might take this away. There are several days before we need to consider this Bill at Third Reading and there will be ample opportunity to put this matter right. I am not sure that such a proposal was the original intention and it was certainly not discussed during the earlier phases of consultation.

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: My Lords, I hope that I will be able to reassure my noble friend Lord Harris that comity can prevail. I thank the noble Viscount, Lord Tenby, for his thanks, because I know how anxious he has been on behalf of magistrates. It has given me considerable pleasure to give him a little pleasure in relation to this matter.
	My noble friend Lord Harris' amendment to place the principle of political proportionality in the Bill is important. In deciding what to place in the Bill and what to leave to secondary legislation, we have had carefully to balance the need to protect the constitutional position of police authorities against the need to increase the flexibility of the legislation. We feel that we have struck the right balance with these amendments. However, I accept that the principle of political proportionality is important and my noble friend's comments graphically illustrated why. That principle was also conceded by the noble Baroness, Lady Harris. I make no comment about their two names, but they always appear to act in unison in relation to these matters. I am happy to give an undertaking that it will form part of the regulations that the Government intend to table under this provision because I understand the anxiety about them.
	I shall also respond to my noble friend's amendment in relation to the appointment of the vice-chairman of the Metropolitan Police Authority and explain how this came about. As my noble friend identified, Amendment No. 18 enables the Mayor of London to appoint the chairman and the vice-chairman of the authority. My noble friend's amendment gives the power in relation to the vice-chairman to the authority itself. It is our view that, as a vice-chairman is empowered to act as chair in the absence of the chairman, it is logical for that position to be appointed in the same way. That will bring the authority into line with other Greater London Authority functional bodies.
	I hope that, in the light of the movement that the Government have made on the other issues, my noble friend—

Lord Harris of Haringey: My Lords, I shall speak to Amendment No. 25 in my name and, in doing so, shall comment on the points that have just been made by the noble Baroness in respect of Amendment No. 24.
	If you believe in the principle that police authorities should be able to set the strategic direction of police forces, part of that should be about being able to hold the chief officer of police to account for the exercise of those functions. If you do not have that provision, essentially you are saying that chief officers of police are not accountable and that there is no transparency in the way in which they choose to exercise their functions. That is very different from saying that the police authority "shall instruct" or "will require" a police chief to operate in a particular way. It is saying that chief officers of police will be accountable for the decisions that they have made. Most of the chief officers of police that I have accounted for have usually been more than capable of giving an account of themselves and explaining the reasons for the actions that they took, but it is important that under the legislation they are required to do so and that they do so publicly and transparently. That is why I believe that Amendment No. 24 is not entirely helpful.
	Perhaps unlike the amendments that I put forward earlier, Amendment No. 25 is intended to be entirely helpful towards the Government, as ever. Here, I am seeking to place in the Bill a requirement—meaning that it is something that police authorities will have to take very seriously—for police forces and authorities to work together wherever necessary or expedient. It is important that police authorities ensure that their forces co-operate with other forces and their partners; that should be something that police authorities do. But I believe that, by stating it explicitly in the Bill, one gives it particular force and it will ensure that we see authorities working together better than has been the experience in the past.
	I note that when my right honourable friend the Home Secretary withdrew from some of the proposals to create strategic police forces and put them into the long grass—I am sure that he used a more elegant phrase than that—he said very clearly that there was an expectation that there would be better collaboration and working together between police forces in neighbouring areas, not only on matters concerning level 2 crime and the sorts of strategic issues that have been of concern but on other matters—for example, in trying to reduce back-office and joint procurement costs and so on. My amendment would provide a framework essentially requiring police authorities and police forces to work together. I believe that that is in the spirit of what the Government have been seeking to do, perhaps by going slower on the question of police service mergers, and it would be helpful to the objectives that my right honourable friend has set out. Therefore, I hope that my noble friend will feel able to support the amendment in my name.

Lord Adonis: My Lords, with the leave of the House, I shall now repeat a Statement made in another place by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Education and Skills. The Statement is as follows:
	"With permission, I would like to make a Statement on the children in care Green Paper that I have published today, copies of which have been placed in the House of Commons Library."Mr Speaker, at the heart of this Green Paper is one simple presumption: that the aspirations of the state for children in care should match those which each individual parent has for their own children."Members of this House recognise this moral imperative, and I would like to pay tribute to the associate parliamentary group for children in and leaving care and to my honourable friend the Member for Stafford for highlighting many of the issues which this Green Paper seeks to resolve."They have pointed out vociferously that this area has received too little attention for too long. We know the depressing statistics: children in care are five times less likely to achieve five good GCSEs and nine times more likely to get expelled from school. Indeed, one quarter of people in prison today have spent some time in our care system. "The Government have introduced a number of measures to address the complex problems of children in care. Since 1997, we have invested almost a billion pounds into the quality protects initiative to improve outcomes for children in care. We have taken steps to encourage adoption instead of care. And we have put a duty on local authorities to improve educational outcomes for this specific group of children. But this has clearly not been enough."Today's Green Paper builds on these efforts and the implementation of Every Child Matters, which for the first time provides the infrastructure to deal with this issue in a co-ordinated way. "The first priority must be to prevent children from slipping into care where there are family alternatives. We must take effective pre-emptive and preventive action so that no child is sucked into the system by default. If there is a chance that a child could be restored to a healing family environment, we must seize it. We will trial a new kind of intensive family therapy which will address the parents' problems, making sure that children are more than just helpless bystanders. It will seek to get to the heart of the domestic problem, tackling the most difficult situations of abuse, neglect or violence with a mix of conciliation and targeted care. To raise our knowledge of what works in this new area, we will create a national centre of excellence to share experience and knowledge."Secondly, the care system must act more like a traditional loving family, with all the extra responsibility this implies. Just because a child is in care does not mean that he should be deprived of the emotional support and development which most children can rely on. The state must ensure that children are always in the best hands, constantly supported, with continuous guidance and motivation investing in their futures and shaping their decisions."The care profession already comprises many dedicated, experienced professionals, but we need to ensure that all carers reach the standard of the best. We will begin a round of specially tailored recruitment campaigns. We will also take steps to match foster carers with children more intelligently, fitting the complex needs of the child with the specialised skills of the carer. "A new tiered framework of qualifications, payments and standards will be used to steer these difficult decisions. By taking more trouble to get it right first time, we will avoid children being bounced from placement to placement, which is so damaging to them personally and disruptive to their studies."Thirdly, we must ensure that children in care receive an excellent education. Results have steadily improved for children in care, but, still today, nine out of 10 do not achieve five good GCSEs. In order to ensure that they benefit from access to sport, music and drama, which instil cultural values and equip them with social capital, we will encourage local authorities to open their sports centres and leisure clubs to children in care free of charge. Social workers will receive individual budgets to spend on the personal needs of the child, so that they have flexibility to find money quickly when a child needs extra support, such as speech or language therapy."We will appoint a new virtual head-teacher in every area with over-arching responsibility for driving up results among local children in care. We will guarantee catch-up lessons. With the passage of the Education and Inspections Bill, we will also require schools to take in children in care even if the school is full, so that children are elevated to the best schools, not dumped in the worst. "We will do more to prevent children in care being excluded. Nothing is more damaging to a child's chances of success than moving school after they have made their GCSE choices. Children who change school after year 10 drop around one and a half grades per subject: so eight C grades become four Ds and four Es. We will therefore create a presumption that children in care will not move schools in years 10 and 11."When children have to move home, we will do all that we can to avoid them moving school as well. We have proposed that in such circumstances, children in care will get free transport to their existing school, rather than move to a new one. "Fourthly, we need to ensure that children who leave care do so in a measured way. Too often, children in care feel that the system spits them out on their 16th birthday, and only 6 per cent make it to university, compared with 38 per cent of their peer group. We must ensure that children get a soft landing when they leave the system, particularly during those crucial years when decisions are made about their future. "We will give every child in care a right to decide when they leave the system and the chance to stay with their foster families up to the age of 21—or longer still, if they are continuing in education. We will establish a new £2,000 bursary to encourage them to attend university. We will also put an extra £100 into their child trust funds for every year they are in care."Parenting is a weighty responsibility and institutions need to be held accountable, just as individuals would be. Every local authority will be subject to regular inspections by Ofsted. They will also be encouraged to set up children in care councils, so that the voices of these children are properly heard. My department will make it a specific priority to improve the academic performance of children in care, and Ministers will hold an annual stock-take. "Too often, decisions about children in care are taken without listening to those with most at stake: the children themselves. For this Green Paper, we will ensure that our consultation stretches right into children's homes to connect with people who have been through the system."This is a Green Paper with as many ideas as prescriptions. We recognise that during open consultation, many further ideas will emerge, particularly from those who have been in care and the dedicated professionals who work in this area day in and day out. They are not to blame for the collective failure that this report highlights: we are. We need to provide a more co-ordinated approach to these entrenched issues, ensuring that our care system is focused less on systems and more on care. These children are our responsibility. We cannot continue to fail them."
	My Lords, that concludes the Statement.

Baroness Morris of Bolton: My Lords, I thank the Minister for repeating the Statement made earlier by the Secretary of State in the other place and for giving us the opportunity to comment on an issue that is much discussed and is such a priority in your Lordships' House.
	The care of children in the guardianship of the state has been a shameful side of the welfare system for far too long. As the Minister said, we have the depressing shopping list of familiar statistics. Half of all children in care are failing to achieve a single qualification in school, with only six in 100 making it to university. They are far more likely—indeed, five times more likely—to have a diagnosable mental illness and almost one third will not have received their basic inoculations. The tale of woe of far too many children in care ending up in prison or turning to drugs and prostitution is a depressing indictment of the role of the state as a parent in the world's fifth largest economy. It has taken 10 years of deteriorating outcomes for these vulnerable children for this Green Paper to be produced, so we very much welcome it.
	The Government say that their first priority is preventing children slipping into care, especially where there are family alternatives. We have long been an advocate of the state supporting parents and families to stay together. Intervention at an early stage to support and guide is welcome, but not in the way envisaged by the Prime Minister in his speech on 5 September, which would see more children condemned to a life in care. We are told that the Government will trial a new kind of intensive family treatment. May I suggest that there are already excellent models of such practice right here, right now?
	In earlier debates, I mentioned the pioneering work of Kent County Council, which has invested enormously in helping families stay together by placing children with members of their extended family if possible. Only when all that fails does it consider taking the child into care. When it does so, there is a strong presumption towards adoption. As a consequence, it saves money on its care budget and has money to put back into early support and prevention, so creating a virtuous circle. None of this will work, however, unless we support, value and empower social workers and so get away from the view of them as child-snatchers and re-energise their profession to work proactively in support of families.
	However well early support and intervention works, there will always be children for whom the state is a refuge, and the state must be the very best parent that it can be. When your world falls apart, the last thing you want is to be removed from all that is loved and familiar. Too many children are moved too often, and too many are moved too far away from all they have known. This is potentially damaging, not least to the healthy attachment of babies and very young children. And how can their key or responsible social worker keep a proper watching brief if they are living hundreds of miles away? The role that the responsible social worker plays is vital. They should assume the role of the pushy parent: standing up for the best interests of that child, challenging mediocrity and refusing to accept inappropriate decisions. We welcome the commitment to extend care provision from 16 to 18, and we also welcome the additional financial and educational support for people leaving care. We should never again have to witness a child leaving care with all their worldly belongings in a black bin liner.
	It is good that children in care will no longer simply be dumped in the worst schools, but going to the best schools will not be the answer if children are moved from area to area. What will be done to keep children closer to home? As part of this, will the Government be looking at an enhanced package of support for foster carers? Will the Minister also tell us what is being done to strengthen the social-worker workforce, which, as I said earlier, is currently undervalued, demoralised and under-resourced? Will the Government be looking at what happens in other countries, such as the highly trained social-worker pedagogue workforce in Finland and Denmark? In all this, there is the voice of the child. But it is not enough simply to listen: the most important part of listening is demonstrating that you have heard. The Secretary of State is right when he says that we should expect no less for children in the care of the state than we would for our own children, and when the Government advance proposals to achieve this, we will support them.

Baroness Walmsley: I, too, thank the Minister for repeating the Statement. I am not going to bash the Government: that has just been done extremely effectively. The Government quite rightly are bashing themselves, and I am very pleased to hear that they have taken on board the fact that nowhere near enough has been done and that they have shown the commitment that we have heard this afternoon to do something about it. I very much welcome that.
	The most disadvantaged children of all are those in care. To be deprived of living with your family is the most catastrophic thing that can happen to any child, whatever the reason. I therefore very much welcome the Government's first priority to prevent children slipping into care where there are family alternatives. However, will that mean increased funding for kinship care, which can be one of the most effective and cost-effective alternatives to children living with their parents?
	I welcome the commitment to intensive family therapy, but will there be adequate resources? Will attention be given to early intervention in order to avoid some of the misery that families go through when they are not coping with their children? Will health visitors be involved? They provide a trusted and universal service, have no stigma attached to them and are very capable of delivering some of this intensive family therapy. Perhaps the Minister will tell us whether they are involved. I also welcome the specially tailored recruitment campaign and the greater efforts to match foster carers to children so that they will not be bounced around. Like the noble Baroness, Lady Morris of Bolton, I am concerned that improved training packages should be offered to foster carers. They can deal with very difficult children. There is a great turnover of social workers: their recruitment and retention is also very important. In addition, is the Minister able to reassure us that in future no happy and thriving child in a good foster home will be moved against his will for financial reasons? Today, I heard of a situation in Lincolnshire where that apparently is about to happen. It seems that no one has asked the child.
	A good education can be the lever for a child to lift himself above his disadvantage in losing his family. Again, I welcome some of the noble Lord's proposals; for example, encouraging local authorities to open sports centres and so on to these young people. But from where will these children get the money? How will local authorities ensure that no stigma is attached to children who use these services for free? I also welcome the individual budgets to be given to social workers, which could be very flexible. Will that money be owned by individual children or will it be one big pot? If so, how will social workers be accountable for funding decisions?
	The Minister mentioned proposals that will require funding: for example, catch-up lessons, the prevention of children in care being excluded and full schools being forced to take another child will need resources. Will adequate resources be supplied? The money should follow the child. On these Benches we call that the "pupil premium", which should go to all children with special needs, and this is the most special need of all. Such an arrangement would encourage schools to take such children, rather than seeking not to take them. Free transport to enable children to stay at a school, even when unfortunately they have to change their placement, is a good idea. However, the biggest lack of access for many of these children is access to the internet. I was very disappointed that the Minister was not able to announce that every child in public care will have a computer and access to a broadband connection. That would be one of the best things that the Government could do to improve educational opportunities for these children.
	Like the noble Baroness, Lady Morris of Bolton, I was delighted to hear that the Government will listen to children more. The Minister mentioned children's homes. Will there be consultation with individual children in individual foster home placements? And what about children in prison; will they be consulted? Unfortunately, many of them land up in prison because they were originally in care and no one really looked after them. Like my noble friends and others speaking on the Front Benches today, I too think that children should not be in prison at all, but if they are, at the very least we should listen to them to find out whether it had anything to do with the fact that they were in care and what went wrong.
	The Minister has said much that is positive and we will certainly support the Government. But what is very crucial is the amount of money put behind the various promises, so we need some reassurance on that.

Lord Adonis: My Lords, I welcome the extremely constructive responses of the noble Baronesses, Lady Morris and Lady Walmsley, to the Statement. As it made clear, we accept that there is a huge amount more to do; the Government's response is in no way complacent. Indeed, no one who looks at the shocking statistics that I relayed, which are set out in the Green Paper, could afford to take pride in the current situation.
	The noble Baroness, Lady Morris, said that the position is deteriorating, but I am glad to say that it is actually moving in the right direction, although it is not moving fast enough. Outcomes for the 60,000 children in care at any one time have improved in recent years. The proportion gaining five or more GCSEs rose from 7 per cent in 2000 to 11 per cent in 2005. That is still a pitiful figure, but it represents a greater than 50 per cent increase over only six years in the proportion of children in care getting five or more good GCSEs. Moreover, the proportion known to be participating in education, employment or training at the age of 19 has increased by 8 per cent since 2002 when the Children (Leaving Care) Act 2000 came into effect. So while policies are making some impact, we need to see a dramatically improved rate of progress.
	Many schools have an outstanding record in dealing with children in care, including schools with boarding accommodation. One of the possibilities raised in the Green Paper is that of extending the use of boarding accommodation for children in care where that would be appropriate to their circumstances and schools are prepared to take it on. There are also areas of excellent practice which we want to examine more closely and learn from. For example, the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, referred to the much higher level of social worker pedagogy and the more highly trained workforces in Finland and Denmark. My right honourable friend the Minister for Children has been studying that closely. The Green Paper makes a proposal to set up social care practices, enabling social workers to group together in much the same way as GPs so that they can operate quasi-independently of the local authority. We believe that that has the potential to raise quality and stability and to reduce the level of bureaucracy which at present can be so stifling to the role of social workers. So there is plenty of good practice both nationally and internationally, but the issue is to learn from it and then to apply it systematically. That is what we seek to do in all the ways set out in the Green Paper, and I am sure that there are other examples of good practice that we should take into account. That is why we have produced a Green Paper and we welcome all responses to it, including those from noble Lords.
	The noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, is always on my case when it comes to resources, and she is right to be so. As we were told by the Bard,
	"Nothing will come of nothing",
	and many of these policies are expensive. However, I have noted the words of Martin Narey, the chief executive of Barnardo's and one of the most respected figures in this field. It has been announced in the Green Paper that he will conduct a review of the future of the concept of care and how we see it developing over the next generation. On the "Today" programme this morning, he said:
	"This is one of those rare things that I've come across in public life where we don't think that what is needed here is more money. We spend nearly £2 billion on children in care—that's about a quarter of a million for each child—and we do a pretty bad job".
	Martin Narey speaks with the experience of being the chief executive of Barnardo's and before that the director general of the Prison Service, so he knows what he is talking about. Indeed, the amount of money spent specifically on children in care has risen very substantially in recent years. It is now £1.9 billion, which is a 50 per cent increase in barely six years. So the proportion of funding available for children in care has risen substantially.
	A comprehensive spending review will take place next year and the particular impact of the proposals set out in the Green Paper will be carefully examined in the call for additional resources over and above what we spend at the moment. But, as those of us who have looked at what takes place in children's homes, with social workers and in schools recognise, if we get the policies right and are particularly successful at early identification—an issue that both noble Baronesses highlighted in their remarks—the expenditure over time is likely to be less and not more, and massively less if we avoid the terribly poor outcomes for children in care that lead them into the custody system, which has the highest level of expense of all.
	So the more successful we are at early intervention, early placements, the intensive therapy referred to in the Green Paper and the initiatives that the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, rightly raised in respect of the more innovative and successful local authorities in this area, such as Kent—for example, the placing of children with extended families—the less call on public resources there is likely to be over time.
	Stability in schooling is a vital part of that because the more stable a child's schooling the more successfully they are likely to perform in school. The statistics on this are particularly stark: children in care are five times more likely to move school in years 10 and 11—that is in the two years leading up to their major public examinations—and yet pupils who move school after the start of year 10 on average score about 1.5 grades per subject lower than those who are not moving school. This has one of the biggest effects in our model of school performance of any change in circumstance among pupils—bigger even, I am informed, than the effect of having special educational needs, free school meals or being looked after.
	Getting stability in school placements is vital. That is why, for example, we propose in the Green Paper that there should be free transport to school, so that if there are movements in placements but it is still possible for children to attend the same school, albeit with a longer journey to the school, the expense of travel to school is not a factor in requiring pupils to change schools.
	I have been asked a large number of questions and I have dealt with many of them. There were others and I may write to the noble Baronesses to deal with them. But let me deal with one vital aspect: the availability and training of foster carers. This is a crucial issue, which the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, particularly highlighted. One of the most radical proposals in the Green Paper, which is set out on page 49, is to move to a tiered set of arrangements for foster carers. There will be three tiers: tier 1 will be foster carers for children with few additional needs relative to those outside care; tier 2 will be carers for children with some additional needs; and tier 3—which is the really substantial innovation—will be carers for children with severe or complex needs requiring specialist care, who, of course, are the most difficult children to look after. The proposal in the Green Paper is not only that these foster carers should have a much more intensive level of support, including immediate access to multi-disciplinary teams, as set out on page 49, but also that this category of foster carers should be salaried for the first time in this country. We believe that taking forward the availability of salaries for foster carers dealing with the most difficult and challenging group of children could radically address both the issue of recruitment, a matter raised by the noble Baroness, and the quality of care and stability of placements.
	There are a whole host of proposals in the Green Paper which I hope will be constructive. We look forward to a dialogue with noble Lords as they study the proposals. I am available, as is my right honourable friend the Minister for Children, to discuss them with noble Lords as they come forward with their responses.

Lord Williamson of Horton: My Lords, I would like from these Benches to support the Green Paper. Many of us believe that it is overdue, but it is a good paper and I support it.
	The Minister placed a great deal of emphasis on improving educational achievements among people in care, which is very important. I would like the Government to place stress on two points that are mentioned in the Green Paper. The first is that no one should end up in care by default, which is what I call the question asked by those in care, "How did I get here?" It is an important point because once people are in care a certain course is open to them and they cannot get away from it. The other point concerns the end of care—the soft landing—and the question, "Where am I going next?" That also is an important point. So an emphasis on education, yes, but the beginning and the end of care are also extremely important for operating the system.
	I have one specific question about exclusion from schools. I understand the point that the Minister has made, but I am not sure how the policy will operate in practice. Does it mean that every school has to be told beforehand that it has to treat some children differently? The practical question of treating people differently where there is a threat of exclusion seems quite difficult to arrange. Perhaps the Minister will comment on that.

Lord Adonis: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Williamson, rightly raises the issue of children not entering or leaving care by default. It is vital that children are placed in care only where there is an imperative need. The big increase in the number of care placements over the past 10 years has been a result of care orders, not voluntary placements. The evidence is that it is only because of imperative need that the number of children in care has increased from 50,000 to 60,000 over the past 10 years.
	The noble Lord's point about not leaving care by default is well taken; it is a major theme of the Green Paper. About a quarter of children in care leave care at 16. That is much better than was the case before the Children (Leaving Care) Act 2000 was implemented in 2002, but we believe that there is scope for significant further improvements. That is why we have proposed giving children in care the right to determine when they leave and providing the right for foster placements to continue up to the age of 21, or further still if the child is in education.
	There is already very strong guidance to schools in respect of children with special educational needs and those in care that full account should be taken of their circumstances before the decision is made to exclude them. That must also involve identifying their circumstances beforehand; in that way, schools and head teachers are aware of a child's particular conditions and the ways in which they can help to deal with those conditions so that issues to do with exclusion do not arise in the first place.
	One of the ideas raised in the Green Paper relates to the fact that parents have the right to avail themselves of the appeals process for exclusions, as indeed they do. As a Minister, I know that one of the most fraught areas of educational practice is when schools find it necessary to exclude pupils, particularly permanently, and deeply aggrieved parents go through the appeals process. The Green Paper says that the corporate parent—the social worker—should consider using that process on behalf of the child in care in much the same way as a parent would. We believe that by engaging with the system in this way and taking a much more active role in ensuring that the subsequent education for the child is taken seriously and the best possible placement is made, corporate parents will start to replicate the sorts of conditions that apply to children with parents who are directly acting on their behalf.

Lord Adonis: My Lords, I welcome my noble friend's remarks, which, as always, are absolutely to the point. Much of the funding issue that she raised relates to social work: seeing to it that support is made available to enable social workers to be more successful in their jobs, and addressing the acute problems in respect of recruitment and training that exist in some parts of the country, particularly London and the south-east.
	These issues are not directly addressed in this Green Paper, because a review process—as my noble friend will know, it is called Options for Excellence and is led by the Department of Health—is looking specifically at the training and recruitment of the social work profession. The final report of the Options for Excellence initiative is due later this month, and I will see that it is sent to my noble friend.
	However, our broad objective in this area is clear: to repeat in respect of social work our great success during the past 15 years in raising the status of the teaching procession, improving its training and increasing the number of good-quality recruits, thereby improving outcomes for children. We seek to replicate many of the processes which we have put in place. Let us be clear that there is a pay and conditions element to our proposals, but they relate also to the quality of recruitment efforts—the kind of work which the Training and Development Agency for Schools does in respect of teachers, which has been radically to professionalise the recruitment exercise and the training provided for teachers. We want to see that become much more widespread across the social work profession.
	Chapter 2 of the Green Paper has a great deal to say about family therapy, and gives a whole set of examples of local authorities and other agencies which have taken forward positive initiatives in this area which we wish to see replicated more widely.
	I understand my noble friend's great concerns about kinship care. She also knows the Government's position on paying grandparents. I fear that we do not have a complete meeting of minds on the issue at the moment, but we remain open to persuasion.

The Earl of Listowel: My Lords, as vice-chair of the Associate Parliamentary Group for Children and Young People In and Leaving Care, I thank the Minister for his comments on that group.
	Developing the point that the noble Baroness, Lady Massey of Darwen, made, in considering the minimum standards for children's homes, and in the Options for Excellence programme to which the Minister referred, will he look at implementing finally the recommendation in the report of the noble Lord, Lord Warner, in 1992, Choosing with Care, that staff in those homes receive regular consultation from an expert in mental health? Does he agree with the noble Lord, Lord Warner, that that would contribute to the development of the staff and their attention and that it would be beneficial to the mental health of looked-after children in children's homes? They are often the most traumatised children, with the Office for National Statistics establishing a rate of 72 per cent with mental disorders in this group. Will the Minister look at that again? In the interim, will he also look at encouraging children's homes to consider the model of introducing a teacher or a social worker, or both, into the home on a part-time basis, for two and a half days a week, to boost the professional capacity of the staff and benefit the children?

Lord Adonis: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Earl for his remarks. He has made an early contribution to the debate on many of the issues in the Green Paper, and we will take seriously his remarks, although some of them have a large price tag attached and we would have to work out their resource implications.
	There has been a significant expansion of the CAMs service in recent years, which goes some way to meeting the noble Earl's first point. However, I accept that there is further to go and that to meet the full recommendations of my noble friend Lord Warner we need to seek substantial further progress on the track that we have started on.

Baroness Howe of Idlicote: My Lords, I add my congratulations to the Government, who have moved a very long way. There is still a great deal more to do, but there are some exciting ideas in this Green Paper. Can I have a tiny moan, however? It would be nice if Green Papers were available to us before or at the same time as they are available to members of the press, who seem to have a better view of everything of this kind. However, that is a side issue.
	I very much support all that is being done with regard to schools and the extra effort that local authorities will be making, as well as the requirement on schools themselves. I am sure that will help. The preventive side is vital and that is clearly in place. I add my support for kinship care. I gather from what the noble Lord has said that this is not a matter on which there has been movement but it could save much money and contribute to a great deal more family cohesion.
	The local authority's responsibility and the need for the child to be consulted have been re-emphasised. That is crucial. However, I wonder whether there is not still a place for those children who do not have any family or friends to have a mentor—an extra person who could undertake the role of a parent, as it were. The local authority is not a parent in that sense. Such a person could befriend such children. Organisations such as Home-Start already have such schemes. Over the years trained volunteers have done so much in this country to map out new areas where government help is needed. They are vital partners in all this. Foster parents are volunteers and all the ideas for increasing their support and training are very welcome, but I still feel that there is room for the extra help which a mentor could give.

Baroness Harris of Richmond: My Lords, this amendment describes a function of police authorities that is so important that it should be in primary legislation; the job of monitoring the performance of a force to ensure that it is carrying out its duties to deliver the policing priorities and objectives that have been set for it. The amendment also includes wording that would ensure that police authorities were responsible for ensuring improvements in force performance. It is particularly important that this should be in primary legislation as it is proposed in the Bill that police authorities are to lose many of their best value powers. I will speak about best value under later amendments. For now, I commend this as an alternative to those provisions. It would enable police authorities to secure improvement—which is what best value does—without the bureaucracy that best value involves.
	A police authority is there to ensure that local police are accountable to local people. A key element of that is ensuring that the local force is delivering against the priorities that are important to local communities. The ability to provide a level of independent monitoring of performance is vital to reassuring communities about their own safety, and demonstrating that they have a voice in deciding what their police should focus on and also ensuring that the police are tackling the issues that are of most concern to them. It is a function that underpins the relationship between the police authority and the people that it serves, and it deserves to be in primary legislation. I beg to move.

Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, this is an interesting amendment which, as the noble Baroness set out, seeks to confer an additional duty on police authorities; that is what it is. In principle, we would have no objection to the proposition, but our question is simply this; whether the provision as set out in the amendment is at all necessary, given that the ground is already covered elsewhere. Schedule 2(9) amends Section 6 of the Police Act to give police authorities an express function of holding the chief constable to account for the exercise of his or her functions. This is no more than a statement of what happens already, but it is as well to make such a function explicit.
	The amendment seeks to place a new two-part duty on police authorities. The first part requires a police authority to monitor the performance of the police force in carrying out any policing priorities. No one can argue with the aims of the amendment, but such monitoring is in effect a subset of the new function of holding the chief constable to account. No police authority will be able effectively to discharge this function without monitoring performance. Such monitoring is a means to an end, not an end of itself. As such, we are not persuaded that we need to write such a duty into the legislation.
	The second part of the new duty would require police authorities to make arrangements to secure continuous improvements in the performance of their force. Again, while I entirely understand and could wholeheartedly endorse the appropriateness of such a duty, it is our contention that there is no need to write this into the Police Act 1996. To do so would be no more than to repeat what we see as the overarching best value duty contained in Part 1 of the Local Government Act 1999, which I am sure the noble Baroness will be well aware of. Police authorities are, of course, already subject to the best value duty. While Clause 5 will be revising the application of the best value regime to police authorities, the overarching duty will be retained. In short, we see merit in the sentiments behind the amendment, but I put it to the noble Baroness that the ground is already more than adequately covered. I invite her to withdraw the amendment.

Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, government Amendments Nos. 28, 30, 31, 32, 49, 147 and 150 respond to the concerns voiced in Committee about the extent to which established functions of police authorities are moved from primary to secondary legislation. The Association of Police Authorities has made representations to us on this issue. In addition, the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee has recommended that, due to the wide nature of the regulation-making power in relation to police authority plans and reports, it should be subject to the affirmative resolution procedure.
	We accept the spirit of the committee's recommendation, but opted for a slightly different solution. These government amendments go a step further and restore to the face of the Police Act 1996 core requirements in respect of the planning process and in relation to consultation with local communities. We will now provide in primary legislation for police authorities to issue before the beginning of the financial year a rolling three-year policing plan. It will set out the proposed arrangements for policing the authority's area during the three years that it covers. It must include a statement of objectives determined by the authority, following consultation with the chief constable, for policing the authority's area for the period of the first year covered by that plan.
	As the core provisions relating to policing plans will now be in primary legislation and the regulation-making power is much more tightly focused, we do not propose to make it subject to the affirmative procedure. ACPO and the APA will of course be consulted on any regulations made under the order. We will use the regulation-making power to stipulate what other matters should be included in policing plans. It would be our intention, and we certainly envisage, that the regulations would require, as now, the policing plan to include any performance targets set by the authority and a statement of the resources available.
	Amendment No. 29 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Dholakia, seeks to incorporate these requirements in primary legislation. Undoubtedly, these are important matters that should be included in the policing plan, but our argument is this: that they are secondary details that can safely be left to regulations.
	Amendment No. 49 also restores to the face of the Police Act the duty on police authorities to obtain the views of their local communities. This will be supplemented by a power to make regulations covering review arrangements, persons whom the police authority should consult and reports to be made by the Home Secretary where arrangements are not adequate.
	I recognise the importance of preserving key points of detail in primary legislation and, as we have made plain previously, the primary functions of maintaining an efficient and effective police force and of holding the chief officer to account for the way in which they discharge their functions will remain on the face of the Police Act 1996—and now, on the basis of these government amendments, so will the functions relating to the issuing of plans and consultation with the community.
	I hope that noble Lords on the Liberal Democrat Benches will be reassured by those comments and agree not to press Amendment No. 29. I commend the amendments to the House.

Baroness Harris of Richmond: My Lords, I rise to speak to Amendment No. 29, to which the noble Lord has already responded, unfortunately.
	First, I welcome the spirit of the amendments put forward on behalf of the Government. The ability of police authorities to determine and issue local policing plans has now been put back into the Bill. That represents real progress, but it does not go quite far enough. Two key elements of what is currently in the law have been omitted from the government amendment. Our amendment aims to put those back into the Bill. I acknowledge my debt to the Front Benches, as I have borrowed heavily from their wording in this amendment, except in the elements they have omitted.
	The first is the ability of an authority to establish performance targets for its force. The second is the ability to include in the plan a statement setting out the resources available and the proposed allocation of those resources against policing priorities. I am sure the Minister will agree that these are important functions of police authorities, but will tell me that it is more satisfactory that they should be placed in secondary legislation—which he has already intimated—to keep things simple and to increase flexibility. I shall see whether I can convince him and the House that these two elements are important enough to be in primary legislation.
	First, on setting targets, the government amendment acknowledges that it is the job of an authority to set objectives for policing its area. But how does an authority know whether those objectives are being met unless it sets targets to measure them? Police authorities have duties under primary legislation to report back to local people on how well their local police force is performing. How can a police authority reassure the public that issues of concern to them are being addressed if it is not setting targets to measure that? Given that the duty of authorities to report on meeting performance targets is in primary legislation, it is inconsistent that the ability to set those targets is not.
	Secondly, including a statement of resources available and the way in which they will be allocated to priorities is key because it impacts on funding and that goes to the heart of accountability. Police authorities hold the budgets for police forces and receive funds from central government towards those budgets, but some elements of the budgets come from local taxation. It is the duty of police authorities to raise those funds through the police element of council tax. Police authorities are accountable to local communities for how that money is spent, so is it not right that they should be able to ensure that policing funds are allocated appropriately in line with priorities? After all, those priorities are set after consulting the public—who fund police forces—to find out what most concerns them. This is not a matter of constraining the operational independence of chief officers but of accounting to the public for money that is collected from them and demonstrating that their money is being spent on addressing issues that concern them. This is a significant and important responsibility that should be in primary legislation. It has been for many years, and I see no reason to change that.

Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, I listened carefully to what the noble Baroness said on this matter, not for the first time, and I conclude that, while this is an interesting debate, it is a debate about means and the ends are shared. We all want to see standards raised and plans actively pursued and fulfilled. I do not think it is essential to have this provision on the face of the Bill. In fact, by putting it there, we may be constraining ourselves and removing an important and necessary element of flexibility to reflect and change priorities over time. I heard what the noble Baroness said on this issue, but I am not persuaded and I have to insist on the Government's amendment.

Lord Harris of Haringey: My Lords, in moving this amendment, I am simply seeking to reinstate the existing provisions of the Police Act 1996 after allowing for the possibility that there may be more than one deputy chief constable and, in particular, that the police authority appoints the deputy or deputies.
	Earlier today, your Lordships listened to an impassioned argument from my noble friend Lady Scotland in which she said that if the Mayor of London appointed the chair of the Metropolitan Police Authority, just as the deputy chair or chairs of the police authority would act in the absence of the chair, it followed inexorably that the Mayor of London should appoint the deputy chairs. I think that there are differences in substance between the police authority in London and other police authorities under the provisions of the Bill, but the substance of my noble friend's argument seemed to be clearly that as the deputy acts in place of the chair, then the same person who appoints the chair should appoint the deputy chairs. Given the logic put forward by my noble friend just a few minutes ago, it follows that if the police authority appoints the chief officer and deputy or deputy chief officers and decides the order in which they deputise, then the police authority should determine which of the assistant chief constables will act on behalf of the chief constable. That is what is proposed in the amendment.
	Currently the police authority and not the chief constable determines which senior officer should act in place of the chief constable during his or her absence. The provisions of the Bill would change that arrangement to make it the responsibility of the chief officer. Frankly, I do not believe that a satisfactory case has been made for why that should be so. Indeed, your Lordships will recall that at an earlier stage of the Bill I argued that the police authority should explicitly be responsible for appointments right down to operational command unit level. That is still my view but, given the enormous progress that has been made on the Bill, I am not proposing to press that today. However, it seems to me that this very simple change in the provision of the deputy goes to the heart of the issue. If the police authority appoints the chief constable, then logically, as my noble friend has already conceded on related points, the authority should decide who acts in his or her place.
	I make it clear to your Lordships that I do not believe that this is an operational decision. It is a matter of the strategic oversight of the capacity of a force. As such, it is a responsibility that falls to the authority. This is where my careful analogy with the Mayor appointing the deputy chairs of the police authority in London breaks down. The argument here does not apply so far as concerns the police authority in London because nowhere is the Mayor of London given a strategic oversight of the operations of the police authority, whereas under the Police Act the police authority is given that strategic oversight. Accordingly, while my noble friend's argument that those who appoint the chief officer or the chair should automatically appoint the deputies still applies, there is an additional argument in this case because of the authority's role in strategic oversight. This is about strategic oversight of a force, which is why the deputy should be appointed by the authority.
	Finally and perhaps most importantly, my proposal would ensure that there was adequate resilience and flexibility in the arrangement at senior level where the absence of the chief constable was long-term or even permanent but such resilience would be owned and supported by the police authority. I beg to move.

Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, Amendments Nos. 33 and 34 make arrangements for the designation deputy chief constables and assistant chief constables to exercise the functions of chief constables in their absence. As we made clear when we considered similar amendments in Committee, we consider such arrangements to be a direction and control matter, and therefore, properly the primary responsibility of the chief constable. In providing for the chief constable to make such designations after consultation with the police authority, we are simply reverting to the position that existed under the Police and Magistrates' Courts Act 1994.
	Deputising for the chief constable is but one of the duties of a deputy chief constable or assistant chief constable. Given that the chief constable is responsible for allocating portfolios to his or her senior management team, it is logical that he or she should also determine which of his or her senior officers should deputise in their absence. That is how we see it. We see it as being part of the chief constable's general direction of the senior management team, and appropriately we feel that it is important to protect the constitutional position of chief officers in having operational direction and control of their force, including their senior management team. I heard what the noble Lord, Lord Harris, said. He did not see it as being part of an operational matter but we take a different view, and I invite the noble Lord to consider his view. We see it operating in that way.
	The noble Baroness, Lady Harris, said that she thought that the Bill's provisions changed the appointment arrangements for ACPO ranks. We do not see that in the same way. The police authority will continue to appoint the deputy chief constable and assistant chief constables, and the Bill does nothing to interfere with those arrangements. In any event, in the absence of mergers, it is very unlikely that any force will have more than one deputy, so it is unlikely to be an issue of concern in the future, although I take careful note of the noble Baroness's examples.
	The Bill would enable the chief constable to identify which assistant chief constable would act in the absence of both the chief constable and the deputy chief constable. The problems that the noble Baroness has identified will not arise in effect and practice. It is a difference of view; we take one and the noble Lord and Baroness another. I therefore cannot agree with these amendments.

Lord Harris of Haringey: My Lords, are the Government therefore moving away from the position they held so forcefully only an hour or so ago, that where somebody appoints the most senior person, they should also appoint the person who deputises for them? If so, that would be helpful for our earlier arguments. I hope the Minister is not trying to have it both ways. Clearly, if it applies to the police authority in London, the same argument must apply to the appointment of chief officers of police.

Lord Harris of Haringey: My Lords, I suppose I am deeply grateful to the Minister for highlighting this possible area of inconsistency in government thinking. I urge the Government to consider carefully the responses they have given me on both this amendment and one an hour or so ago. It seems to me that you cannot apply completely different sets of logic to the two cases. If the Government are saying that the person appointing the chairman of a police authority must also appoint the deputies because they might act as chair in the chair's absence, the same logic must surely apply for the appointments of chief officers of police.
	The Minister says, with a look of regret and sorrow, that he begs to differ on the fundamental point of principle: that this is an operational matter, an issue of direction and control, rather than one of strategy. We surely recognise the central leadership role of chief officers of police. How they exercise it is very much about the strategic direction of the force. Parliament explicitly gave police authorities the right to appoint not only the chief officer of police but also the deputy chief officer of police in the 1996 Act because that strategic role is so fundamental.
	I am not quite sure what attracts the Minister to the 1994 Act rather than the 1996 Act, let alone whether it is related to the sad disagreement on the point of principle he has referred to. However, I urge my noble friends to consider how they make coherent their logical arguments in the various answers I have received this afternoon and, while they do so, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Baroness Harris of Richmond: My Lords, clerks of police authorities up and down the land are cheering and celebrating the Government's acceptance of the amendment we tabled in Committee, albeit in their own inimitable legalise, and now they are all chief executives. I very much thank the Government for making them so, and warmly welcome the amendment.

Baroness Anelay of St Johns: My Lords, Amendment No. 36 would ensure that the Secretary of State could not lay a statutory instrument containing an order regarding alteration or merging of police areas unless it was accompanied by a cost-benefit analysis commissioned from an independent body, which included the financial cost and benefits of each and every suggested alteration.
	In Committee, on 20 June at cols. 721-23, I said that it is essential that before the Home Secretary forces the merger of police forces, he should ensure that the changes are certain to be both cost effective and accepted by the communities affected by the merger. The amendment would help to give the public the confidence that, should mergers once again arise on the agenda, these matters have been properly considered in an independent, transparent and accountable manner.
	We had a detailed debate in Committee, to which I certainly shall not return because on Report it would not be appropriate to do so, when we considered the Government's assessment of the costs of the proposed mergers, an assessment that was not recognised by the police authorities and police forces as being anywhere near the real figure.
	Over the summer it has emerged that £6.1 million has been spent on preparing for the Government's failed merger scheme by just 27 out of 43 forces. The total financial cost to police forces alone could be well over £10 million, and many have made claims to the Home Office for the funds that could have meant 271 extra police employed on the beat. It is a staggering waste of taxpayers' hard-earned money, all for a programme of merger that Moira Wallace, the director-general of crime, policing and counter-terrorism at the Home Office, admitted two weeks ago when she spoke at the Police Superintendents Association conference was "not well enough planned" and,
	"was not well enough managed".
	We certainly agree with that.
	With the Home Office budget effectively frozen by the Chancellor of the Exchequer from 2008 onwards, we on these Benches remain concerned that forced mergers would put pressure on other parts of police expenditure. I believe that the revelations over the summer have only highlighted what a disaster police regionalisation would be and have shown that the preparation costs have already dented local policing capability. It is important for the Minister to bring the House up to date with the Government's policy regarding forced mergers.
	There have been many press reports over the summer saying that Ministers have scrapped the plans to force mergers. There have been reports of speeches by Ministers in which they have allegedly given commitments that they will not require forces to merge unless they have demonstrated positively that they wish to do so. Yet the language in Parliament has been less clear, until today perhaps. It has been couched in terms that imply that Ministers will return to the fray when they think that attention has been diverted away from this matter.
	Earlier this evening we heard of a little progress. The noble Lord, Lord Bassam, said that it was not just a matter of these plans being kicked into the long grass but that—he used the words—they are in the deep freeze. Are the Government going to bring a blow torch to that deep freeze in the near future and let loose on the enforced mergers again? I made it clear to the Minister when we met to discuss these matters about a month ago that I would table this amendment, not to press it today but to give the Government the opportunity to put on the record, in as clear terms as any government Minister is able, what their plans are regarding police mergers. My colleagues in another place can then properly reflect on the Minister's answer when the matter on which we won a Division earlier this year returns shortly to another place for debate. I beg to move.

Baroness Harris of Richmond: My Lords, we most definitely support this amendment. It is absolutely essential that we never again get into the ridiculous state of affairs we were pressed into which ensure that police officers and police authority members spend ludicrous amounts of time trying to work through the Government's proposals. The cost of all this ill-thought-out enforced activity has been enormous, as the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, has so rightly pointed out. In my own force alone it amounts to hundreds of thousands of pounds. In future whenever any government feel the need to be radical it should be imperative that a cost-benefit analysis is undertaken before proposals are brought before Parliament. We support very strongly this amendment.

Lord Dholakia: My Lords, the points raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, are very helpful. I recollect a considerable amount of time being spent by noble Lords on all sides of the House trying to work out what precisely the Government had in mind when police mergers were being discussed. At one stage there was not adequate time for consultation. People were crying out for a timescale within which the decision should be taken. We were told that certain police forces up north were likely to be merged. A new Minister was then appointed who has come along and said that the matter has been put in the long grass or the deep freeze—or whatever expression one wants to use.
	A considerable amount of time has been wasted on this matter, not only by Ministers and others, but there has been pressure on a number of noble Lords with police authorities making representations and wanting a clear answer. It would be very helpful if the Minister were clearly to indicate whether the merger plans will still be enacted at some stage. If not, what went wrong and why were the plans stopped?

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, for giving me this opportunity to clarify the situation. Her generosity beggars belief on occasion.
	On 19 June my right honourable friend the Home Secretary made it clear that he was not going to force through mergers where they were not wanted. As a corollary to that clear statement, the notices of intention to merge which were issued on 3 March and 11 April were withdrawn on 13 July.
	That is not to say that the issues in Denis O'Connor's report, Closing the Gap have gone away; far from it. There is a widespread recognition that the status quo is not an option. We need to make progress in enhancing forces' capacity and capability to protect the public from the threats posed by terrorism, serious and organised crime and civil emergencies.
	We now need to focus more on the outcomes that we want to achieve and less on structural questions. Earlier today, the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, gave us an example of her local force working energetically with other forces in the locality to address some of those issues. Collaboration and co-operation are obligatory for all of us.
	We want to work with police forces and police authorities to see how best we can deliver the required improvements in protective services while preserving neighbourhood policing. To this end, the Minister for policing and security, my honourable friend Tony McNulty, has written to all chief constables and police authorities seeking their views on how best to narrow the protective services gap in the absence of mergers. He has followed up that letter with a series of meetings with forces and authorities to listen to their views at first hand. As part of that dialogue with the service, we have made it clear that we are open to all possibilities ranging from collaboration to federation and to the lead force model. We are ready to do what we can to facilitate any innovative solutions to the issue.
	What matters is what works and what delivers real improvement in the quality of level 2 policing while protecting neighbourhood policing, rather than details of structure. The public want their local force to tackle crime and anti-social behaviour. They also want and deserve to be properly protected from threats posed by serious organised crime and terrorism. We are no longer looking to mergers to deal with that issue, but the merger option must remain available as a last resort. We cannot say that we will never have to use it. No responsible Minister and no responsible Government could ever give such a guarantee, to which the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, referred. But I reiterate that enforced mergers are off the agenda. We shall return to that only if it is clear that none of the other options being considered could produce worthwhile results.
	As in all our debates, there did not seem to be any disagreement between us that we had to improve; the question is simply how. How do we deliver the change that everyone has identified as needed? It is for that reason that we must preserve the existing provisions in the Police Act 1996 which enable the Home Secretary of the day to initiate mergers where that would be in the interests of policing and protecting the public. Such a provision has been on the statute book for many decades and was retained and, indeed, updated, by the previous Conservative Administration in 1994. That is why we shall invite the other place to reject the amendment made by this House in Committee.
	I turn briefly to the amendment. Its effect would be to outsource decisions about whether to alter police areas to an unidentified and unaccountable independent body. Any merger needs to be supported by a well-founded business case, but it is ultimately for those who advocate change to put the case for it. In the case of initiating police mergers, Section 33 of the Police Act already effectively provides for that by requiring that the Home Secretary of the day must set out his or her reasons for the proposed alteration of police areas.
	I hope that the House will be satisfied that the Home Secretary's decision to withdraw the merger notices issued in the spring has settled the issue. What matters now is how we work with the police service to strengthen the protection of the public against the threat posed by terrorism and organised crime. All the conversations that we have had have addressed that issue with a degree of urgency. That is the debate that we need to have now. The provisions for amalgamating police force areas in the 1996 Act are perfectly adequate as they stand and should be left on the statute book as a back-stop but, as mergers are no longer on the agenda, it is time for us to move on.
	On that basis, I hope that the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, will be content to withdraw her amendment, having given me a delightful opportunity better to explain where we now find ourselves concerning force mergers.

Baroness Henig: My Lords, before my noble friend replies, I should say that the matter has already been referred to; indeed, I raised it in Committee. I was extremely concerned about these issues and I welcome the fact that my noble friend has tried to narrow down the basis of intervention, in a way that I welcome.
	I hear what the noble Baroness, Lady Harris, says about police authorities. Both she and I know that some police authorities, although probably only one or two, might well have problems and be in some disarray. She and I have had experience of that. There is a way through the point that she makes: we know that police authorities will be inspected in the near future, and I take her point that the Secretary of State should not take his decisions on any grounds other than established fact and objective assessment. It seems that if police authorities are to be inspected, as indeed they are under the legislation, there will be an objective basis on which to categorise police authorities. Therefore at least that objective could be met, because there will be ways in which one can determine where the police authorities are doing their job and where they are not. To that extent, the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Harris, could be addressed through police inspections, and the Secretary of State could reasonably take note of those inspections when coming to a view about police authorities. As I say, although I recognise the anxieties that have been expressed, I feel that the Government have made progress on trying to narrow the basis on which direct intervention would be made, which I welcome.

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: My Lords, I thank the noble Baronesses, Lady Harris of Richmond and Lady Anelay of St Johns, and my noble friend Lady Henig for welcoming the government amendments to the extent to which they each did. Perhaps I may ask for a little more generous welcome from the noble Baroness, Lady Harris, for the following reasons. We understood the import of the concern expressed. In our previous debates, it was clear that Members of this House wished these powers to be used as a matter of last resort and that the direction to the police force or the police authority would be given when they failed to provide the standard of service that we all expect. I do not think that there was any dissent on that. I appreciate that the noble Baroness, Lady Harris, and my noble friend Lady Henig were particularly concerned that there should be no inappropriate, improper, heavy-handed, not-thought-through interference, and we agree.
	As the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, has made plain, we have worked very hard to think of how we could accommodate this concern, which we not only accept but want to allay because it was not our intention. The noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, was right to raise the concerns expressed by ACPO and the Association of Police Authorities. In all fairness, I must tell your Lordships that the two government amendments in this group provide those associations with considerable and significant reassurance. They are now both in a position to welcome the Government's amendments.
	Perhaps I may explore why they have welcomed them. Beyond choosing where to live, local people have no effective choice about the police service that they receive. The intervention powers therefore need to be in place to ensure that the Government have a means of driving performance improvement in cases where policing has fallen below an acceptable level. As I said, intervention powers are powers of last resort. I know that the noble Baroness, Lady Harris, gave exciting examples, but I think that even as she said them she did not suggest that they were really convincing as a basis on which a Home Secretary was likely to intervene. Her smile gave that away, as enchanting as it always is.
	Our experience of last resort is borne out by the first five years or so of these powers being available to the Home Secretary. He has not needed to use them, as other non-statutory resolutions to performance issues have proved sufficient. A situation will require formal intervention only if results are not forthcoming or police forces or police authorities are unwilling to engage. The rationale for the Government's revisions to existing powers is based on experience of dealing with performance failings gained since the inception of the original powers. The revisions are about framing the powers to provide the most focused and effective response to performance failings in police forces and police authorities.
	Amendment No. 38, tabled in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Dholakia, seeks to remove all the changes introduced in the Bill. We believe that the changes are necessary to better reflect how we work in practice with forces and authorities, and to ensure that they serve as an effective lever of continuous performance improvement. The Government have been concerned about the length of time that forces and authorities can take to put effective improvement plans into operation. Effective powers need to be available if performance improvements are not forthcoming. The changes to be provided by this Bill are merely intended to make the process more efficient and more in line with how they may be used in practice.
	Amendments Nos. 39 and 46 propose a definition for the level of performance failing that would lead to intervention as "serious and permanent" failure. Furthermore, the intervention will occur exceptionally, only if there is no alternative. We realise that to clarify or define the type or level of failing may provide some comfort, although we are not convinced that it would be helpful to add such wording. Intervention powers are intended to be used only in the most serious cases, but it would be illogical to wait for any failing to become permanent before action was taken. It is worth reminding the House that there is no such test in the existing intervention powers approved by this House in 2002, which has not inured to our disadvantage.
	There are a number of safeguards to ensure that the powers of intervention are used in only the most exceptional cases and when all other methods of achieving the necessary improvements in performance have been attempted. Most importantly, intervention will not take place unless the police force or police authority had previously been made aware of the performance failings and had been given the opportunity to remedy those failings. There is also the option of non-statutory engagement with the Police Standards Unit, which in practice is most likely to occur before any intervention is considered.
	We have listened to the previous debate on the definition of a threshold that must be met before intervention powers are utilised. Moreover, we are aware that the removal of the inspectorate as the only trigger for the intervention powers has also raised concern. That is why government Amendment No. 45 places an obligation on the Secretary of State to consult the new Inspectorate for Justice, Community Safety and Custody—I hear what the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, says about that—in all cases where it is proposed that the powers are used, and to publish the inspectorate's opinion on the evidence which has led to that proposed course of action. That is intended to ensure that the inspectorate's professional, independent advice is available to the Secretary of State on whether the use of the powers is, in its opinion, the right course of action.
	I listened carefully to what the noble Baroness, Lady Harris, said about police authorities. I agree that the new requirement on the Home Secretary to seek the views of the Chief Inspector for Justice, Community Safety and Custody before issuing a direction in relation to the police force should also apply before any direction is issued in relation to a police authority. That makes sense, and I can see why the noble Baroness makes that suggestion. I can therefore assure the noble Baroness that we will bring forward an appropriate amendment at Third Reading. I endorse what my noble friend Lady Henig said. Inspecting police authorities and their function gives us a good avenue through which to ensure that we respond proportionately and appropriately.
	The noble Baroness, Lady Harris, also said that the Home Office basically has the skills and knowledge to intervene in this way. I of course accept that this is new territory, but that should not stop us from doing the right thing. Elsewhere this Bill provides, for the first time, for police authorities to be inspected. These amendments go hand in glove with that change.
	Amendments Nos. 41 and 42 would remove the ability of the Secretary of State to intervene directly with a chief officer of a failing force rather than via the police authority. Learning through our non-statutory work with police forces has demonstrated that the best way to deal with performance problems is to go straight to those, such as the chief officer, who can implement the changes necessary to turn around performance. That is more easily achieved if direct contact is made from the start. The same is true of initial direct contact with the police authority. The change we are making in the Bill is not intended to bypass the police authority or its critical role in holding the force to account for its performance. It has always been our intention that the usual route for intervention would be through the police authority, but we recognise that there might be some occasions when the police authority may not feel able or be able to take the necessary steps.
	We are, however, sensitive to the concerns that this direct intervention has raised during the passage of the Bill. Government Amendment No. 43 makes our intentions clearer and will hopefully reassure the House. The amendment provides that the powers are routed directly to the chief officer only in two specific instances: first, where the police authority has also been shown to be failing; and, secondly, where the police authority has specifically requested intervention by the Home Secretary as the most effective way to rectify the problems.
	Finally, Amendment No. 44 seeks to remove the Secretary of State's ability to intervene without delay when he is satisfied that the chief officer or the police authority have, in respect of the police force or police authority, failings, having been given sufficient information and time to remedy those failings. Again, these revisions to the Police Act are not about removing safeguards, but reflect our experience of working with underperforming forces and what is needed to enable us to get to the heart of the problem quickly. Where a new performance issue arises, of course the expectation is that the force and the authority will be given the time and opportunity to address it, and we would work to help them were such a request for assistance to be made. However, when the force or authority has failed to address problems they have been made aware of and on which they have been given ample time to act, for example via an engagement with the Police Standards Unit or an earlier inspection report, a different solution would need to apply. We feel that it would be illogical, where a longstanding and known performance issue had persisted and gone unresolved, for our response at that point to be to hand back the problem to the force or authority without any stronger and more immediate requirement for its resolution. These provisions will ensure that the necessary action can be taken to address serious failings which have gone unattended.
	In conclusion, we have listened very carefully to the concerns about these provisions and we believe that the government amendments meet them. We believe, too, that we have satisfied the concerns raised by the Association of Police Authorities and the Association of Chief Police Officers, both of which have welcomed our amendments. In those circumstances, we invite noble Lords also to welcome them and ask the noble Baroness not to press her amendments.

Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, the Finance Act 2004 brought in new rules relating to pension benefits and to formally register pension schemes. At the same time, new police pension schemes were opened and the existing police pension scheme for the police in Great Britain and the almost identical scheme for members of the Police Service of Northern Ireland were closed to new entrants. These changes do not affect officers who are members of the old scheme transferring from one police force to another within Great Britain, but police officers transferring permanently between Northern Ireland and Great Britain in either direction would be obliged to join the new pension scheme on transfer.
	The Government are keen for officers to join the new scheme and are giving all serving officers across the United Kingdom the opportunity to do so during a comprehensive options exercise. It was not our intention to compel police officers to do so on transferring between home department forces within the United Kingdom. These amendments would give the Secretary of State the power to merge the old pension schemes, thus removing this unintended consequence of the recent changes in pensions policy. The merging of the schemes will bring no disadvantage to officers and is essentially an administrative measure designed to facilitate the transfer of police officers from the Police Service of Northern Ireland to forces in Great Britain and vice versa. Such transfers are particularly important for the Police Service of Northern Ireland so that it can draw on the skills and experience of senior officers from other Great British forces. This move is widely supported by the police, including the Police Federation, the Police Negotiating Board and the Policing Board for Northern Ireland.
	I understand that this is a riveting subject for most Members of your Lordships' House. With that comment and observation, I beg to move.

Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, I return to this issue feeling rather perplexed and not a little confused as to what Liberal Democrat politicians are really about when it comes to best value. I thought that I would feel rather more enlightened after listening to the noble Baroness, Lady Harris, but as she went on I became, if not confused, more concerned about the illogical thread on which the argument was based.
	It is right that Clause 5 removes the bureaucracy associated with best value reviews. I thought I heard the noble Baroness agree that the best value regime needed to be less bureaucratic. Having heard that statement, I thought that the noble Baroness would then have agreed with the Government's position.
	It may be worth reminding the House what the overarching duty amounts to. It is a duty on police authorities to make arrangements to secure continuous improvement in the way in which police functions are exercised. Amendment No. 53 would remove that duty from police authorities, at least in the context of the Local Government Act 1999.
	In the debate on Amendment No. 26, the noble Baroness sought to re-enact the overarching duty in the Police Act 1996. She argues that it is unreasonable to leave police authorities with the best value duty without the tools to discharge it. That is not an argument I can accept. Police authorities will have the necessary tools at their disposal—they have them now. They will still be able to conduct reviews and call on the chief constable to submit reports. I do not recall hearing the noble Baroness say that police authorities do not have the wherewithal, knowledge or ability to discharge their other statutory functions without having express powers to go with each and every one of them. If we did, we would have a very cumbersome statutory process indeed.
	It has also been argued that the residual best value duty is redundant as it overlaps with the police authorities' duty under the Police Act to maintain an efficient and effective police force. I can accept that there is some overlap, but a duty to secure continuous improvement in the delivery of service goes a step further and, as such, is well worth retaining in its own terms.
	I genuinely believe that there is little in practice between what the Government are seeking to do and what the noble Baroness wishes to achieve. I think that we both believe in continuous improvement and that police forces should be run in an effective and efficient manner, but we have tried to lighten the bureaucratic burden. Having listened to Liberal Democrat politicians, I thought for a long time that they adhered to that part of the Government's philosophy.
	Perhaps that is no longer the case. Perhaps over the summer the noble Baroness, Lady Harris, decided that she would rather have more bureaucracy and more precision in the way in which a statutory objective is deemed to work. If that is so, I regret it, because I do not think that that is what police authorities want or that it is necessarily in the best interests of the service.
	I hope that having heard what I have had to say and reflected more on some of the illogicality of her argument, the noble Baroness will feel able to withdraw the amendment, which would actually change very little.

Baroness Harris of Richmond: My Lords, I have received some excellent briefings on this amendment from the APA, the Metropolitan Police Service and HMIC. The amendment would limit the minimum powers of police community support officers to those which are below detention level. The Government are keen to standardise the powers of police community support officers so that people across the country know what common set of duties will be carried out by them and understand what to expect from them. This is a reasonable aim. The difficulty with the Government's approach is that they are leaving themselves complete flexibility in what they might centrally prescribe by way of community support duties through secondary legislation. I expect the Minister will tell me that this flexibility is necessary to future-proof the legislation, but this is not standardisation, but centralisation. There are other practical difficulties with this approach.
	At present, it is the job of the chief officer of police to decide what range of duties PCSOs within his force will carry out. This means that their duties can be tailored to local policing style and that there is some variation between forces in what tasks they do or do not carry out, but that is the whole point of having local forces accountable to local people.
	The key roles that PCSOs play in all areas are: offering increased visibility to provide greater reassurance to the public, improving community engagement through getting to know communities and the issues that concern them, and gathering intelligence from local people about what is going on in their neighbourhoods. It is precisely because they are not quite police that they are more trusted by the sections of the community which react badly to the more authoritarian image of fully sworn police officers, yet standardising their powers in the way suggested by the Government will simply make them more like sworn officers. They risk losing these advantages and there is no clear distinction.
	If we are to give PCSOs standard powers, this standard should represent a set of minimum powers, with flexibility for chief officers to increase them if it is appropriate to their area. This means drawing a line in the sand about the limit of standard powers, which should be set below detention level for a number of reasons. First, if community support officers are to take on the more confrontational roles which detention powers would imply, their training will be very much longer and consequently more expensive. Secondly, if their role is expanded to include additional tasks, PCSOs could quite reasonably expect to be paid more. Both of these could add a significant additional burden to police budgets, which we know will already be under great pressure over the next few years. Thirdly, the distinction between community support officers and police officers will become more blurred, potentially leading to a loss of the trust they currently enjoy among sections of the population which feel alienated from the mainstream. This would be extremely unhelpful in the troubled times in which we live. Fourthly, having detention powers would mean that they would have to start completing more paperwork, making court appearances and so on. Time spent on this would be time they would not be on the front line providing a greater level of reassurance to, and engagement with, the public. Fifthly, expanding their role is likely to give the impression that forces are trying to recruit police on the cheap. This could have unwelcome implications both for public perception generally and for relationships with sworn officers and the organisations that represent them. Finally, we must ask what kind of people will be attracted to becoming community support officers if it is seen not to be a community-based post, but one that carries rather more authoritarian powers.
	Taken together, these represent a compelling set of arguments for ensuring that any standard powers are minimum powers, with the line drawn as I have described. Chief police officers will still have the ability to increase those powers if and when they feel it is necessary. For the reasons that I have outlined, it is unhelpful to prescribe greater powers for all areas. This is important for the confidence of the public in policing and deserves to be in primary legislation. I beg to move.

Baroness Anelay of St Johns: My Lords, I strongly support my noble friend, and I have added my name to his amendment. He is right to bring this matter before the House again, and I hope that it may be resolved in his favour tonight—I hope by the Minister being able to agree with my noble friend. It is also right, as the noble Lord, Lord Dholakia, said, that the majority of firearms are legally held and responsibly used. None of us is trying to target legislation at those who behave responsibly. The fear of gun crime is strong, and the risk of gun crime is real in some parts of the country. The illegal use of guns on some of our streets brings injury to some and misery to many; it is the scourge of a generation in some parts of our society. The considerable merit of my noble friend's amendment is in the simplicity of the description of the powers that he seeks to confer on the police. I am aware, of course, that powers already exist to enable the police in certain circumstances to search people, but those powers are to be extracted from a myriad of legislative instruments.
	Since Committee, my noble friend has carefully considered the drafting of his amendment, and he has made one small change which should meet the concerns of those who felt that the power might appear to go more widely than my noble friend intended. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Dholakia, for indicating that the change has helped him to support my noble friend. If the Government wish to give a clear message about their commitment to reducing the level of gun crime, they have the opportunity to do so tonight by accepting my noble friend's amendment.

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: My Lords, I say straight away that the Government agree with the sentiment expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Marlesford, agreed by the noble Lord, Lord Dholakia, and supported by the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay. The recent tragic shootings have highlighted once again that the fight against gun crime is far from over. We have already put in place legislation to support that fight; for example the five year minimum sentence for those adults convicted of unlawful possession of prohibited firearms.
	The Government take gun crime extremely seriously. That is why I was grateful for the opportunity to discuss the issue with the noble Lord in our telephone conversation last week. There was nothing on which we disagreed about the nature of the crime and the need to face it with all possible tools. There is legislation in place that provides a range of enforcement powers to the police under Section 47 of the Firearms Act 1968. I realise that I am repeating what has been said on this issue, but the facts remain the same. For example, in the circumstances specified in the legislation, a constable can require a firearm or ammunition to be handed over for examination; the person can be searched and detained for the purpose of the search; if a vehicle is involved, the vehicle may be searched and the person driving or in control of it can be required to stop it; and, furthermore, for the purpose of exercising these powers a constable may enter any place.
	The Government have made clear their commitment to tackling gun crime and to ensuring that the police have sufficient and proportionate powers to help make communities safe. The existing legislation helps meet those objectives, and no purpose would be served by duplicating the powers available under existing legislation. The police agree with that view. The Association of Chief Police Officers's lead on stop and search, Deputy Chief Constable Craig Mackay of Gloucestershire, said that he was not aware from his portfolio of the service asking for this power or identifying a gap in current legislation that requires a new power and that, as drafted, the amendment is a major extension to police powers and raises some real issues of interpretation that could cause community concerns. The ACPO's lead on the criminal use of firearms, Chief Constable Keith Bristow of Warwickshire, concluded that this might be a step too far, due to the complexities stated by DCC Mackay. He confirmed that while appreciating the support of the noble Lord, Lord Marlesford, for the police, ACPO is unable to support his amendment.
	Further, I cannot accept that the inclusion of the amendment in the Bill would serve as a declaratory statement either to the police or to the general public. The police are well aware of the high priority that we place on the fight against gun crime and are already fully trained in the use of their powers under existing legislation. The introduction of powers that duplicate existing provisions could only serve to confuse them, and I know that is not something the noble Lord, Lord Marlesford, would wish.
	The House will be aware that, lamentably, the general public are not in the habit of reading Bills or Hansard. Indeed, rumour has it that following the deliberations of this House late at night does not cull from the public the interest that it might otherwise deserve, which is much to be lamented. Therefore, I cannot agree that the amendment would raise the profile of gun crime in the public's consciousness in the way that the noble Lord suggests. We have run a number of public information campaigns about the issue, and we will continue to do so in the future. I respectfully suggest that those are more likely to have the effect that the noble Lord is seeking to achieve than a declaratory amendment to the Bill. The noble Lord does not suggest that the amendment adds anything to the legislation that we already have; it simply adds a new complex arrangement that police officers would be burdened to have to learn in addition to all the others. It adds very little.
	Given that we now have a clear view from the Association of Chief Police Officers that the new power is not needed, I ask the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment. He is to be commended for his persistence on this important issue. He is right to raise it, but may I suggest that the benefit of so doing has already been delivered and we should press the matter no further? It has now had five outings and it is perhaps time to put the amendment to bed. I ask the noble Lord not to press the amendment this evening.

Lord Marlesford: My Lords, the telephone conversation that I had with the noble Baroness was of course immensely agreeable, as is any conversation with her either on the telephone or face to face. Her speech was exactly what I though it would be; it was largely what she had said previously. I offer my humble congratulations to Sir Humphrey in these matters. I am aware that the Home Office is opposed to ideas that do not come from itself; I have had the long experience of the requirement for the firearms register being on the statute book for nine years and nothing being done because the Home Office did not like it.
	I am not concerned at all as to whether there would be some duplication. This clear statement of the law would quickly get through to the public; not by reading Hansard—of course not—but the media do a good job sometimes and they are taking a great interest in gun crime at present, and rightly so. If I had been given the opportunity of talking to her right honourable friend the Home Secretary, he might well have been pretty much in favour of this amendment. If I were a politician in the Government, I would see this as an opportunity to take action, rather than using words and setting up further consultations for the long term. The long term is too long because, as Keynes notably, or rather, lamentably, said—sadly, in this case, with accuracy—people are dead.
	We need to take guns off the streets now. It is possible to do so. My amendment would help that to happen, which is why I would like to test the opinion of the House.

Lord Dholakia: My Lords, this amendment was debated in Committee. We do not object to Clause 14, which gives trading standards inspectors the power to impose fixed penalties on people who sell alcohol to children. Our objection is to Clause 15, which gives the Secretary of State a delegated power to specify unlimited categories of people who chief police officers would be able to accredit with the power to give fixed penalty notices. There would be no restriction on the groups of people who could be specified. The Government could use this power to give punitive powers to wholly inappropriate groups of people: for example, dinner ladies could be allowed to fine children for fighting in the playground; bouncers could be allowed to fine pub-goers for being drunk and disorderly or supermarket check-out staff could be allowed to fine shoplifters. I say these things because Liberty has given me examples that are quite amusing. In recent years, we have heard of ridiculous uses of on-the-spot fines: an Oxford student was given a fixed-penalty notice for a drunken joke about a policeman's horse being gay and pro-hunting campaigners were fined for selling T-shirts bearing uncomplimentary remarks about the Prime Minister. Most recently, we have heard a proposal to use fixed-penalty notices against people who drop cigarette butts in the street or put their rubbish out on the wrong day of the week. It is to restrict the extent to which further people are given such powers that I beg to move.

Baroness Anelay of St Johns: My Lords, Clause 15 gives the Secretary of State an order-making power to specify unlimited categories of people to whom chief officers of police could give the power to give fixed penalty notices. That is a clear, straight-forward and wide-ranging power and it is right that we should look carefully at the potential it has to change the way in which our courts work.
	Earlier this summer, there were stories in the press that the Government intended to extend dramatically the number of offences that could be dealt with by way of a fixed penalty notice rather than the person having his case disposed of in court. The story returned to the headlines on Friday, 29 September. The Times carried a story that serious offences, such as obstructing or assaulting a police officer in the course of his or her duty, could be subject to an on-the-spot fine. That would be an unbelievable extension of on-the-spot fines.
	But then the very next day the Times carried another story reporting that the Home Secretary had ruled out on-the-spot fines for violent assaults. What did he mean by that? A spokesman for the Home Office said that Ministers had not been consulted about the proposals. How extraordinary that proposals for changes to legislation can get that far and apparently not be on a Minister's radar, especially as the Prime Minister appeared to be trumpeting exactly those changes in his own speech at the party conference earlier that week. I know that we may not necessarily take everything that the Prime Minister says in his conference speech as gospel. For example, he asked the conference to celebrate with him the fact that the Labour Government had been the first to appoint a female as Leader of this House, thereby forgetting yet again, as he had forgotten in a press release a few years ago, the appointment of Lady Young. I give way to the noble Baroness.

Baroness Barker: My Lords, I, too, thank the Minister for his introduction to these regulations. Along with the noble Earl, Lord Howe, I was privileged to be one of the small band of people in this House who worked in some detail on the Mental Capacity Act. It is a piece of legislation of which this House should be most proud, an excellent piece of work.
	That Bill was founded on principle. Because of the subject matter and the approach that the Government rightly took to it, the detail of the secondary legislation—the regulations, guidance and code of practice—were always going to be of considerable importance. It was a framework Bill. We must therefore spend time debating these matters, and I am glad that the Government have recognised that and afforded the time to do so.
	Another reason why we should give considerable attention to the matter is that throughout the passage of the Bill it was apparent that three groups of people each took a distinctly different view of the matter at hand. First, there were the people with family members whose capacity is severely limited and who, perhaps because of their experience, are disinclined towards what they perceive as the intrusion of advocates. Secondly, there were the people with limited capacity who equally feel that an advocate can be an intrusion on their rights and liberty. Then there are the organisations which work with people who lack capacity and which frequently come into contact with people who have been subject to abuse or discriminatory treatment, who on the whole take a much more positive attitude towards advocates. In trying to meet the needs of those three distinct groups, it is extremely difficult in practice to strike the right balance. That is the context in which we need to look at these provisions.
	I welcome the regulations, given that they bear the hallmark of work and views that have been changed in the light of practice and of consultation. But I need to make a few points. I should have stated at the beginning that I declare an interest as an employee of Age Concern England, which is a member of the Making Decisions Alliance.
	My first point—that there have been pilots—was referred to by the noble Earl, Lord Howe. I join him in asking the Minister to tell us what findings have come from the pilots so far. Will the Government give an undertaking to keep those pilots under review? It is only by seeing how the legislation works in practice that we can continue to improve it, even at this stage when it is being implemented.
	It is welcome that the regulations recognise that there will be circumstances, other than those envisaged when the legislation was passed, in which an independent mental capacity advocate is needed. I am glad that a discretionary power is given to local authorities and to health bodies to vary the circumstances in which an IMCA is appointed.
	I draw the Minister's attention to the fact that the regulations specifically describe the situations in which an IMCA can be appointed. The guidance is much wider. That may not make a considerable difference to statutory authorities, but it may to the people who are the potential users of IMCA services. They may look at the regulations rather than at the guidance. What will be done to ensure that the extent to which this power is discretionary and available is made known to individuals who may use it?
	My second point is about the circumstances in which an IMCA could be appointed, particularly when a deputy has been appointed by the court of protection. We know that deputies are taking over the functions previously held by appointees, and that they will have both a financial and a welfare role in the lives of people who lack capacity. There could be a conflict of interest for a court-appointed deputy. Therefore, it is possible that for an individual's interests to be best served an independent advocate might be needed, particularly when decisions are being made about precisely where care should be received. As the noble Earl, Lord Howe, said, social services departments are under considerable budgetary pressures, particularly on residential care, and it may be that the conflict for the person from a local authority acting as a deputy would be too great.
	The next area I need to ask the Minister about is clarifying the links between an independent mental capacity advocate provided under the Bournewood contacts and the Mental Capacity Act. Will he clarify the potential overlap between those different initiatives?
	I want to echo the point made by the noble Earl, Lord Howe, that while the regulations make clear that the Government see a priority in those who have neither friends nor relatives to look after their interests, there are occasions—it was always envisaged that there would be—when people need assistance; for example, where a person's relatives are on the other side of the world in Australia, or where there are disputes within families. There is a need to make it clear, not just to local authorities but also to individuals, that they can in those circumstances have access to independent advice.
	Finally, I too want to ask the Minister whether the research from the pilots will give us an indication about the availability of advocacy and the ease with which it can be accessed. It is the Government's intention, I understand, to recruit many of the IMCAs from existing advocacy schemes. The problem with that is that many advocacy schemes which exist within the voluntary sector exist on a very perilous basis. Getting funding for advocacy schemes is extremely difficult. From the pilots so far, what has been the level of demand? What has been the level of demand from people with relatives or friends? Is there an available pool of advocates to meet that need? With those questions, I too welcome the regulations.

Baroness Harris of Richmond: My Lords, I, too, thank the Minister for introducing this order. I assure him that we very much welcome it. It is a bold legislative step to ban smoking in public places, but it is necessary. I was pleased to see that almost all those who responded to the consultation opted for a total ban on smoking in public places. The BMA's 2002 report concluded that there are at least 1,000 preventable deaths every year which are the result of passive smoking. We have heard that the BMA and the Royal College of Nursing support a complete ban in enclosed public spaces and we on these Benches agree.
	As we have seen from the Republic of Ireland, the issues of compliance and enforcement will not loom large. If Ireland can enforce the law, and publicans and others comply in the way that they do to a large extent, the same should be true in Northern Ireland. This is a basic health and safety issue. A smoke-free environment should be the norm where non-smokers work. They should have freedom to work in an environment free of damaging substances. I believe that that is where the freedom issue lies: it is not in the freedom to smoke in the presence of others, but in being free of other people's smoke that can damage one's health.
	In addition to the immediate effect on employees and customers, there are of course wider benefits to be reaped in banning smoking. Such a ban would clearly help to reduce smoking in the population as a whole, which can be only a good thing. No-smoking laws have been shown to support smokers to quit. In the Republic of Ireland, a survey by the National Smokers' Quitline service revealed that about 10,000 smokers reported that they had reduced their consumption since the ban came into force. According to the Irish Revenue Commissioners, cigarette sales fell by nearly 16 per cent in the first six months of the ban.
	Finally, we should note the words of the BMA's head of science and ethics. Dr Vivienne Nathanson said:
	"The medical profession is united in its calls for a total ban on smoking in all enclosed public places and workplaces. Recent research reports that second-hand smoke kills 30 people each day. The situation in New York, Ireland and other cities and countries that have gone smoke-free show that these policies do not harm business, they do not cost jobs. The policies are popular, they encourage people to quit and they protect health and save lives. What possible argument is there for not implementing a total ban?"